At last - a column about Katrina Amy Alexandria Alexis Infield, aka Katie Price, aka Jordan, aka Mrs Peter Andre. I've put it off on the basis that whenever I feel compelled to grapple with this most potent of cultural phenomena (almost daily) I think, 'No, Flett - something even more fabulous will happen to Katie next week...' And lo it invariably comes to pass.

But she's just been profiled by the New York Times, and has therefore conquered not only LA, which would presumably be her spiritual home, but arguably the most sophisticated metropolis on the planet, and thus it feels like the moment to attempt to take stock of the former seducer of Gareth Gates while six months pregnant turned full-time working wife and mother-of-three (Harvey, Junior and Princess), 'author' of 24 books (11 in the Perfect Ponies series, six in the Mermaids and Pirates ditto, three novels and four volumes of autobiography...), lifelong horse-owner who has recently started competing at dressage (for which you need to be a very good rider), occasional singer and former Eurovision contestant, 'designer' of equestrian wear (very pink with a fabulously camp coat-of-arms style logo featuring a horse's bridle bit, a crown and a heart, the collection is strong on velour hoodies (£44.99), but, bafflingly, there's not a pair of jodhpurs), 'designer' of bedlinen (for Matalan; pink, hearts, blah...), creator of her signature scent (Katie Price Stunning for Her, RRP £34, with top notes of mandarin and bergamot), reality contestant, presenter of chat shows, bastion of OK! magazine and wannabe-global brand, worth an estimated £30m and counting.

I logged on to katieprice.co.uk but it's subscription-only, and fascinated by her though I am, 25 quid to take a peek at Katie's blog when I can pay a lot less for any issue of OK! (or indeed absolutely nothing to find out what she thinks about Jade Goody's cancer via any number of websites - 'I feel sorry for anyone who's going through what Jade's going through. But I can't believe she is paid for interviews on subjects that people are really traumatised by. I saw her on Celebrity Big Brother and thought she was a racist. She didn't give people sympathy when she was on the show...') feels just a tiny bit surplus to requirements, however on one of the site's few all-areas-access pages, Katie describes herself as 'a celebrity glamour model and [her italics] a caring, loving mother and family member', which is barely the half of it, frankly.

It is hard to pin down the essence of why Britain, and now apparently the US, has completely fallen for Katie, but obviously the tipping point was I'm a Celebrity... when flighty Jordan, the silicone-enhanced single mother and serial faller-out-of-nightclubs was revealed to be made of sterner stuff than we'd imagined, unafraid of eating witchetty grubs in a bikini while falling in love with a washed-up Aussie pop star. As a re-branding exercise, this was on a scale that would have challenged Madonna, and was all the more successful for being both utterly unexpected and (apparently) entirely unselfconscious - though Katie has always been the mistress of her own destiny, I don't think even she could have envisaged that her (roughly) 273 per cent male fan base would, in less than five years, undergo such radical gender reassignment that (according to her management) the traffic on katieprice.co.uk website is now 85 per cent female.

I'm very conflicted about Katie, on the grounds that she is patently a post-feminist nightmare/wet dream. I respect her savvy ability as a personal brand manager and understand the motivation to flog every last bit of herself (those used breast implants can still be yours for the right price - recycling is not recommended - while her soul will be available to the highest bidder circa 2070), if only on the grounds that it represents consumerism's last hurrah.

But inevitably I despair at the fact that Ms Price is also a role model for a certain sort of seven year old with a princess fetish and/or a lust for fame who imagines that growing up to acquire big boobs, lots of money and a buff husband will equate to everlasting happiness. And you know why that really annoys me? Because it's obviously true...